Bachelor Party Gone Wrong
by ebonyandunicorn
Summary: Stephen has a wild night planned for Nick. Mixed results.


The knock on his office door heralded Cutter's worst dreams come true.

He didn't bother with saying _Come in_; Stephen had already swung the door open and swept into the room, an enormous grin on his face that was far from reassuring. "Are you ready?" he asked grandly. "Come on. You're going to love it."

"Am I really?" Cutter asked rhetorically. "Isn't the tradition usually to make the groom-to-be's last night of 'freedom' an utterly miserable one?"

"What? No." Stephen waved a hand dismissively, his grin only widening. For some reason, Cutter failed to find his enthusiasm infectious. "Would I do that to you?"

"Yes," Cutter replied without hesitation. "Where are we going?"

"That," Stephen said firmly, "would be telling. Come on! You don't need to bring anything; trust me, I've packed everything we're going to need."

"Who's 'we'?" Cutter demanded, not moving from his desk.

"Just you, me, and a few blokes from the ARC. Nobody you're not going to want there. I did invite Lester, but he turned me down for some strange reason. I'll never fathom why."

"No, neither will I."

"Let's go!" Stephen was practically bouncing up and down with impatience. "I've been planning this for months. Don't be such a spoilsport, Nick. It's going to be _fun_."

Cutter slowly pushed back his chair and slowly crossed the room, regarding Stephen warily with every step he took. "Have you hired a stripper?"

Stephen rolled his eyes. "How clichéd! No, Cutter, I have not hired a stripper. Though there's still time if you want me to –"

"No," Cutter said hurriedly, shaking his head. "No, it's okay."

Stephen smirked, ushering him out the door. As it closed behind them with an awful _click_ of finality, Stephen led them along the short walk across campus to where he'd parked the truck. It was empty, which took Cutter by surprise. "I thought you said you'd dragged the others into this?"

"I have," Stephen answered, his excitement subsiding just the smallest amount now that he'd managed to lure the professor out of his office. "They'll meet us there."

"Meet us _where?_" Cutter demanded.

"It's a surprise." Stephen grinned across at his friend as he started the car, already knowing what the grumpy response would be.

"I hate surprises."

Stephen simply shook his head, still smiling as he turned onto the highway. They drove through much of the afternoon, down a dozen long English roads that blurred into each other after a while until Cutter had no idea of where they were – though, admittedly, that wasn't saying much; the professor's sense of direction was notoriously poor. All Cutter knew was that the were no longer in central metropolitan London. They were on the outskirts of the city, if they hadn't left it behind altogether. Now they were driving down a road so long it never seemed to end, with enormous green fields lining it on either side.

"Stephen, just where are you taking us?"

"Relax. You will love it."

Cutter sighed. No matter how many times Stephen said as much, he was yet to believe it. He had known Stephen and Connor were planning something for his stag's night – every time he'd seen them around the ARC over the past few weeks they'd snickered and avoided his gaze – but as the day itself had grown closer his anxiety had increased until it was almost too much to bear. He had threatened Stephen with everything he could think of, up to and including throwing him through an anomaly, but the man had not budged. It had, to put it mildly, driven Cutter mad, and Stephen had enjoyed every minute of it.

"Okay." Stephen turned off the road onto a dirt track and followed it down to where it ended in a cul-de-sac, where several other cars were already parked. "It's just us," Stephen said as he switched off the engine. "Connor, Matt, Becker, a handful of soldiers, and the two of us. We were going to invite some uni friends, but, well, you don't exactly have any who aren't stuffy lecturers, and tonight isn't really a night for stuffy lecturers." He grinned and slipped out of the car, opening the back door to pull out two heavy backpacks, one of which he tossed to Cutter before slipping the other onto his back. "We're a little early, in fact. There are still three or four hours of good light left. Come on."

Cutter took a deep breath and followed.

They cut across a huge green field, the grass almost up to their knees in places, soaking up the day's last rays of sun. A little while on a copse of trees provided much-welcomed shade – even late in the afternoon, it was still uncomfortably hot – and Stephen led them through it, habitually checking the ground for tracks as he went. What had looked like a small clump of trees from the outside soon became a forest of considerable thickness and depth. As they went, they passed several signs saying, _Keep Out_.

"Stephen," Cutter said as they passed the fourth such sign, "are you deliberately ignoring the very clear instructions?"

"Nope," Stephen replied cheerfully. "We put them there. Wouldn't want anybody intruding on our fun, now, would we?"

"Guess not," was the muttered reply.

Eventually the trees thinned out again and a clearing came into view. Between the branches Cutter could see what looked like glints of metal interspersed with an unpleasantly familiar shimmering.

"Uh, Stephen..."

"Surprise!" his lab assistant crowed, leading Cutter into the clearing with a flourish.

The professor could only stare, wide-eyed, as he took in the scene. In the centre of the clearing was a sparkling anomaly, emitting its trademark shimmer and the soft hum of another world. Complicated-looking metallic structures were on either side; a beaming Connor stood beside one, a grinning Matt by the other. Captain Becker was leaning against a tree, holding a gun in both hands. Several ARC soldiers were scattered around the clearing, watching the anomaly with wary eyes.

"You've gotta be kidding," Cutter said.

"Nope!" Stephen gestured towards Connor, who left his complex contraption to skip over to Cutter. "Connor," continued Stephen, "I think you owe our dear professor an explanation."

"It's stable, don't worry," the young student reassured him. "We've been monitoring it for weeks and it hasn't changed a bit. The stabiliser prototypes I showed you the plans for a few months ago seem to be working just fine." He indicated the two machines on either side of the anomaly, glowing a bit with pride. "Lester knows about it, but we convinced him to keep quiet if we promised to keep it under guard. Nothing's come through yet, so whatever's on the other side's bound to be a little dull. You'll have fun, though. Hopefully. That's sorta the idea of tonight, yeah?"

"On the other side?" Cutter echoed faintly. "You don't mean..."

"Yep." It was Stephen who answered, looking as smug as anything. "I was going to go with something traditional, like camping, or getting blind drunk, but I figured you wouldn't mind a bit of adventure before settling into dreary married life." He grinned. "Don't worry, it's perfectly safe. We won't go too far, and the environment on the other side's probably tame as anything. I've got everything we could possibly need in these bags. Matt and Becker will come too. You know, just in case."

"Not Connor?"

"I've gotta stay and watch over the stabilisers," Connor explained, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. "It's all right. I've brought the latest edition of _Batman_ to keep myself busy."

"Well, you have fun with that," Cutter said. He glanced at Stephen, then at Matt and Becker, who had approached. "Shall we?"

* * *

Cutter had to admit, this beat the traditional. There was camping out with your mates, and then there was camping out with your mates in an utterly different time period of the world's history. Judging by the climate and the surrounding primitive plant life, Cutter had estimated that they were somewhere around four hundred million years in the past. No land animals were present that far back, which explained why nothing had come through the anomaly, and also meant that they were relatively safe.

"Stephen," Cutter said, lying back on the mat they had packed to look up at the cloudless sky, "I've gotta say, this is better than pretty much any of the expeditions you dragged me on as an undergraduate."

"I never dragged you anywhere," Stephen replied easily. "You were the one chasing after all the newest digs like a puppy. I just followed after you and forgot to pack the mosquito repellent."

"It's a good thing there are no mosquitoes in the Devonian, then." Cutter sat up. "There's still an hour or so until the sun sets. Reckon we can look around a little more before it gets dark?"

"Of course. It's your night." Matt, Becker and Stephen packed up quickly and efficiently, ensuring that they didn't leave anything behind. "Lead the way, professor," Stephen said with a smile.

Cutter was happy to oblige. He led them down a sloping hillside – away from the anomaly site, but not foo far – towards a large clump of plants. They were mostly shrubs and ferns, with only one or two taller trees in their midst. "Looks like the Middle Devonian, all right," Cutter said, reaching out to brush his finger along the underside of one of the ferns. "This is the earliest period where you're gonna see real trees with proper leaves and roots; anything before this wouldn't have grown taller than a few centimetres." Matt and Stephen at least pretended to be interested, while Becker stood a little further away from the group with both hands on his weapon, ready to fend off nonexistent predators.

"Looks like there's a pool a little further down there," Stephen said, pointing. "Wanna check it out?"

Cutter set off eagerly, not bothering to answer Stephen's question with words. The pool was murky to the point of opaque, with dirt and clumps of plant matter floating on the surface. Cutter pulled a fallen twig from the back and hesitantly prodded the surface of the water. When nothing emerged to attempt to eat it, he let the twig float and dipped in his finger.

"It's warm," he said.

"Wasn't the Devonian supposed to be the Age of Fish?" Stephen asked, watching Cutter warily. "How can you be sure you're not going to lose your finger to an ancient marine predator?"

Cutter grinned. _"You_ promised I would love this," he replied. "I would not love to lose my finger, so, if such a thing should happen, it's your fault."

"Your logic is flawed in about a dozen places," Stephen argued. "For starters –"

"There!" At Becker's shout, both men stumbled away from the water's edge and followed his gaze. A ripple had appeared on the surface of the murky water. A moment later, a second one popped up several inches closer to where they were. Cutter leaned forward and stared intently, watching as whatever was below the surface slowly approached them. "We should stand back," Becker warned. Cutter opened his mouth to argue.

He was interrupted by the appearance of the creature.

It looked like a hideous cross between fish and worm. Its mouth was wide and gaping, its tiny beaded eyes barely visible in the folds of surrounding flesh, grey and wobbling like some sort of sick jelly. Its whole body quivered as it held its head out of the water, pointing its mouth straight in the direction of the four of them.

"What the hell is that?" Stephen asked.

In response, the creature projectile vomited.

Stephen and Cutter swore in unison as they were drenched in warm, grey slime. It had the consistency of overdone porridge and smelled like death, and it clung to their skin like thick paste as they swiped at their faces, desperate to get it out of their eyes. Matt grabbed Cutter's collar and Becker Stephen's, dragging the two away from the disgusting worm-fish as they continued to swear and wipe at the slime. When they were a safe distance away, Matt grabbed two towels from his pack and handed them to each of the slimed men.

"What the hell?" Stephen repeated weakly, when he could talk without slime dripping into his mouth.

Cutter was a worrying shade of green. He simply shook his head.

"No offence," Matt drawled, "but you two _stink_."

"We'd better get back," Becker said. His voice sounded unusually nasal; Cutter, looking up, saw that the hardened soldier was pinching his nose. "Professor, you might be in the shower all night before you get that smell off you."

"A shower sounds _good_," Cutter said emphatically. "Let's go." He threw the towel around his shoulders and glanced over to where Stephen was trying in vain to get the slime out of his hair. "Just so you know, Stephen," he added, "this is still your fault."

Stephen looked up at him. "I told you you would love it."


End file.
